McDonald's in former Taiwanese leader's house in China Gained Controversy

Giant fast food chain McDonald's recently opened a McCafe franchise in the historic house of former Taiwanese leader Chiang Ching-kuo in Hangzhou, China, and it sparked controversy.

BBC reported that McDonald's opened the McCafe in the villa by the West Lake tourist attraction over the weekend. Conservationists consider the house a cultural heritage site and they are not particularly happy about it being turned into a commercial spot. However, officials said the lease to McDonald's was needed to pay for maintenance costs for the place. Besides McDonald's, the villa's second floor is leased to Starbucks, which opened last month.

CNN gave a brief history stating that the former Taiwanese leader and his son Chiang Kai-shek, who is the former Kuomintang leader, lived in the two-story villa in 1940s. That was the time when Kuomintang lost against the Chinese Communist Party during t he Civil War. Both of them retreated back to Taiwan after that. The government seized the property in 1949 after the Communist Party penetrated the Hangzhou in 1949. It was used as an employee residence until it was declared a cultural heritage spot in 2004. It was sublet to a real estate company that used it as a private club until it was closed due to Chinese President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign in 2014. It was then owned by local businessman Shen Chunlei, who renovated the villa. He is the one who opened the McCafe on November 15 in the house.

In a report by Asia One Zhejiang Provincial Government Offices Administration's Liu Haisheng said, "They lived in the house for only one month and almost nothing about them was left because many people moved in and out after them, so it is meaningless to turn it into an exhibition."

Chiang's grandson, Demos Chiang, who is a Taiwanese businessman, criticized the commercialization on Weibo saying the move does not adhere to the "regulations on correct usage of cultural heritage sites."